Carbon tax would be popular with UK voters, poll suggests

Levies on flying, imports and other high-carbon services could raise £27bn a year by 2030, says Zero Carbon Campaign

Taxing carbon dioxide emissions would be popular with voters, polling suggests, as the government moots ways to put a price on carbon that could help tackle the climate crisis and fund a green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Carbon taxes could be levied on energy suppliers, transport including flying, food, imports and other high-carbon goods and services. At present, the UK levies implicit taxes on carbon, for instance through duties on petrol and diesel, and some heavy industries pay an effective price on carbon. But there are no taxes for consumers that are explicitly geared to the carbon emissions created by the goods and services that they buy.

Two-thirds of people said a carbon tax was a fair way to raise money, and that the proceeds should be spent to benefit the country, according to a poll of 2,000 people carried out by Opinium for the Zero Carbon Campaign, which is trying to persuade the government to put a price on carbon ahead of the UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November.

A similar number (68%) would also like to see poorer people protected from the impacts of carbon taxes, and there was strong support for redirecting revenues towards creating green jobs and retraining workers, investing the revenues in clean energy, and using them to fund the NHS.